He was born in a town that had a potash famine, he said, limestone and cobalt and some other rocks and boulders he couldn’t identify. There used to be some Irish here, he often said, to no one in particular or with any reason for saying it, and they danced round huge boulders like madmen, their tam-o-canters railing in the wind. I was born in a Milltown, said his friend Stamos, in a time when water was a luxury and grass browner than hen’s shit. Oh, said he, is that so, well let me tell you, my friend, just what it’s like to live without potash, it’s merciless, merciless indeed. Stamos said he’d trade potash for water and green grass any day, and anyhow he said loudly, his face reddening, the Irish had a potato famish, not a potash one. I was born in Montreal before Drupe and Ramous were around and way before they decided to build a rollercoaster on a nun’s island.
